


The Gold of Magic and Kings

by kingsqueensroyalty



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Once and Future King, Oneshot, arthur has feelings, implied suicide, merthur if you squint, theyre bestfriends but they're in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25308145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingsqueensroyalty/pseuds/kingsqueensroyalty
Summary: Without Arthur, what was Merlin's purpose? That was the question he had been asking himself for centuries and he still didn't have an answer.Merlin was so tired waiting for Arthur's return, the supposed time of Albion's greatest need. Well, Merlin had needed him everyday and he never came. So he decided to stop waiting.Will Arthur rise in time?
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	The Gold of Magic and Kings

**Author's Note:**

> First time posting so let me know what you think? 
> 
> Merlin and Arthur deserved better, but instead I made it worse. Ooops
> 
> I do not own Merlin, if I did Lancelot and Gwaine would've been best friends forever.

Merlin’s destiny had always been to serve Arthur. 

Everyday was dedicated to his King’s service, to build the Golden Age of Albion, from the moment he was born and opened his eyes. The gold in them chained him to his fate. He killed, he betrayed, and on the Goddess he hurt. Everyday brought pain to him, through his breath or as he walked, pain found a way to enter his life in new forms.

But… it had been worth it. For Arthur. With his nobility and honour, he made the pain seem bearable, like a cost of war no different than the weariness that came from wearing armour too many nights in a row. 

And then Arthur died. He left him, he left Merlin even as he begged his King to stay. He died in his arms. And Merlin... well Merlin was punished by being forced to walk the Earth and watch as his friends and magic faded from this plane with the passing of time.

For centuries he could use his power to remove the ages from his skin and bones, but his magic was useless in removing the ages from his eyes and mind. He began to forget, he began to forget all of Camelot, all except a pair of blue eyes looking into his as the life faded out of them. 

His life and his happiness was vague, but what he could remember, what was clear - was the pain. 

The Great Dragon told him that Arthur would return, that he was the Once and Future King, that he would raise Albion out of the ashes when they needed him most. Merlin had seen Albion’s darkest hour and then two centuries later, he had seen the hour get darker and darker, and still Arthur did not rise.

In all of the wars, the plagues, the mindless killings... Merlin had begun to lose faith in destiny and his King. After a millennium and half, Merlin was old and tired. He longed for his King, but more so he longed for the mindless wandering and loneliness to stop.

“Is this what you wanted? Is this the great end I’ve waited so long for?” Merlin screamed to the sky, tears in his eyes. His long, grey beard flowing in the angry storm that had appeared. He had decided to end it, end it all. The only part of his life that he is sure of is that he only exists to serve his King, without a King to serve, without Arthur - what worth did he have?

In true homage to his King, Merlin took the form he inhabited in Camelot once more. As Merlin lay on the dying grass bank of the Lake of Avalon, he let his magic pour out of himself and into the Earth around him. At first he felt only relief, he had not been able to release magic of this proportion since the battle of Camlan. As more and more magic poured out of him, Merlin felt himself laugh into the wind as memories of Camelot flew behind his eyes. Positive ones from when he was a mere babe to his now ancient age.

He saw Gwen tucking a flower behind her ear and her coronation. Both memories seemed to glisten in a beam of sun, he couldn’t tell you if it was always there, but it seemed fitting. Gwen always was a light, she brightened days and guided those who were lost. 

Lancelot laughed with relief turning away from the Griffin. Brown eyes looked back into his, a shared secret bouncing between them. The most honourable man he ever met and in Merlin’s last moments he would be immortalised into his smile, sometimes the only comfort or recognition Merlin was allowed. 

Gwaine biting into an apple was so vivid, he could hear the crunch. The thrill that surrounded the drunkard, but of course he had always been more than that. As much as he ran from it, Gwaine was a noble. Honest and true, one of the best friends Merlin ever had. 

All of the knights at the round table. Gauis working in his quarters. Freya and the joy in her eyes at the sight of strawberries. They all danced through his mind and his body, magic responding in bursts illustrating the memories that were buried for so long.

But most of all, he saw Arthur.

Everywhere, everyday. Waking up in the morning, mocking him on the training field, on patrol and every time they were about to risk their lives. 

Finally, as he was dying. 

Merlin felt the tears trickle out of his eyes and into the grass along with his magic. Breathing shallowly, sobbing, curled up into the flowers that were now in bloom - he was unaware of what had happened around him.

The once dead grass, morbidly still lake and angry sky had completely changed. All around, Merlin’s magic had brought the environment around him into its prime. The grass was beautifully green with flowers filling its gaps and the sky was blue with calm clouds that held only friendly shapes. His magic had fallen as fine golden dust, the gold of kings, the gold of Arthur’s hair. It had settled as a soft blanket over the hills and over himself. 

Merlin could be at peace here, blissfully unaware of the world and its happenings around him.

The lake was ravenous and it held a sense of desperation as waves appeared out of nowhere crashing aggressively against the bank. However, a fondness for the warlock led the waves to fade out to a soft lapping before they approached Merlin's body. Fishes swam in frenzies, feeling the currents in the water but unable to understand them. The surface of the water rose as a steam, hissing as a shape emerged from its depths. 

Arthur. 

Rising with a grace only fitted for royalty, Arthur emerged from the lake, slowly as if feeling the millennium of dark, stillness slipping off of his form. Excalibur in hand, and the same armour he died in fitted to his body, though much cleaner, almost as if it had just been polished - Arthur had returned to Albion. 

To a King who had been locked away in oblivion, aware but unaware of his equal’s plight, the emergence into an Albion covered in gold - alive almost as it danced through the air - was disorientating. 

As the water dripped and fell off of him, dispersing into a steam before it hit the ground, like it had never been, Arthur felt his lungs inhale and exhale for the first time in centuries. The Future King revelled in his living, before he was struck cold at the sight of Merlin as little more than a corpse. 

A corpse surrounded by and covered in the most luscious flowers, and sparkling lightly as if a precious jewel in the summer sun, but chilled to touch and grey nonetheless. The body that once held all of the magic and memories of the lost ages shifted easily under its King’s hands. Its limbs were heavy but dangled uselessly as its head was shifted to rest on an armoured torso. The metal was freezing, slightly colder than it was.

The remnants of what was Merlin could not feel Arthur’s hands gripping his arms, as though the strength in the hold could bring back the only person he valued in the world. The organic matter that previously made up the boy who had too much on his shoulders, too little people to share it with - could not feel as tears slipped from the King’s eyes and fell into raven hair.

Long ago, perhaps before they had even been more than Prince and servant, Arthur had decided that this man was worth his tears.


End file.
